“I was not angry at the fact that my friend had died only two months from his 49th birthday. Nor was I upset at how he died. No, the root of my smoldering indignation was why this beloved husband, father, friend, and brother had to die. Yes, he had to die.”

As I compose this commentary, I am less than 24 hours removed from attending the funeral of a beloved friend and brother in Christ. I will refrain from mentioning his name out of respect for the privacy of his surviving wife and children. Nevertheless, and with your patient indulgence, I would like to dedicate this blog post to his memory and legacy.

Notwithstanding the God-exalting music, Christ-centered preaching, and heartfelt testimonies of a select few of his closest friends who, in eulogizing their departed brethren, spoke very affectionately and, at times, humorously, about his servant’s heart, his Christ-honoring devotedness to his family and, most importantly, his unwavering allegiance to his Lord, the imagery that remains clearest in my mind is of me sitting on a pew near the rear of the sanctuary and staring almost unblinkingly at the solid black coffin that contained my friend’s bodily remains.

Though fully aware of the ancillary goings-on in my peripheral vicinity – most notably the continuous loop on the two big screens above the rather cavernous sanctuary of photos taken over the years of this dear brother and his family and friends – I found myself becoming increasingly angry at the sight of the open casket that was stationed front and center several pews in front of me.

I was not angry at the fact that my friend had died only two months from his 49th birthday. Nor was I upset at how he died. No, the root of my smoldering indignation was why this beloved husband, father, friend, and brother had to die.

Yes, he had to die.

“The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die.” – Gen. 2:16-17 (NASB)

My own father died of a massive heart attack at the relatively young age of 64. It was a “normal” summer afternoon when he walked into the master bathroom of his home to do what people “normally” do in bathrooms. But, in my father’s case, he didn’t walk out. My mother came home from work that day and discovered his lifeless body slumped over the bathtub. Conversely, my older brother died of complications from HIV/AIDS at the age of 35. It was only six months from the day he told me over the phone of his terminal diagnosis that we were lowering his body into the ground.

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